


Yesterday's Dream

by Tarlan



Category: Adventure Inc.
Genre: Angst, Deathfic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-09-10
Updated: 2006-09-10
Packaged: 2017-10-18 16:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 796
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/191088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judson reflects on his lost relationship with Stefan following his death in Qu'nichia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yesterday's Dream

Grinning broadly, Judson threw the jade artifact up into the air, deftly catching it as gravity pulled it back down to earth. He might not be bringing an entire jade altar back to the States but he had discovered enough to appease the people who had agreed to finance this expedition. The location of the temple would bring scholars of Mayan and other ancient South American cultures racing to obtain visas and permission slips from the Office of Antiquities, perhaps bringing more wealth into the area.

He stopped to take a long look at the altar, wondering at the mysterious halo that had appeared when Stefan tried to pull it from its ancient resting place. No doubt the scientists would find an explanation for it but Judson held his own belief as he watched Ynez and her lover walk away hand in hand.

The echo of marching boots filled the cavern and Judson turned to face a number of soldiers. He froze but they ignored him and his team, marching over instead to pick up the still dazed remnants of Stefan's band of mercenaries. One walked up to where Stefan lay still on the ground close by. He kicked out at the body... and something tore inside Judson.

Until that moment this had all seemed like something from a dream... too unreal to make any great impact upon him, but the sight of a lifeless arm flopping back uselessly to the dusty ground ripped through him.

This was no dream... and Stefan was not lying there asleep. He was dead. Stefan was dead.

Judson couldn't recall moving, only regaining his senses as strong arms pulled him off the shocked soldier, leaving the man bloodied and disheveled, sprawled in the dust beside the body.

"Don't touch him!"

"Easy, Judson. Easy."

Judson shrugged off Gabe's hands, leaning over in wide-eyed shock as he fought to draw breath into his laboring lungs. Realization had hit him like a punch in the gut, forcing the air from his body. He dropped down beside the still form of a man who had once been more than an associate... more than a friend.

Stefan was dead. His lover was dead.

A stifled sob fell from his lips as he realized the small dream he'd been holding onto had gone forever. How long had he been secretly hoping that Stefan would come to his senses and return to him? It was so hard to believe that a small spark of resentment had torn them apart, bringing them to a moment in time when the man he had lived, worked, fought and loved with would want him dead.

No. That wasn't true because at the end, with a gun aimed at him at point blank, Stefan had not pulled the trigger. Something of what they had shared had still been alive in there. Some small measure of the love they'd had, of the friendship they'd forged so many years ago, had still sparked deep inside of Stefan. It had stayed his hand but it had not been enough to stop him from trying to take the altar... and dying in the attempt.

Judson closed his eyes tightly, unsuccessful in his attempt to stop the tears squeezing through and rolling down his cheeks. He reached out, blinded by hot tears, to touch the still warm face, a single tear dropping onto the slightly parted lips that used to worship him with gentle kisses and soft words of endearment.

Movement from across the other side of the body drew his eyes to the figure slowly kneeling down and he looked into Mac's compassionate grey blue eyes.

"I'm sorry, Judson."

He nodded once, accepting her small hand and allowing her to draw him to his feet and away from where Stefan lay. He turned aside, unwilling to watch as the soldiers removed Stefan's body, and his eyes fell upon the jade altar that had caused Stefan's death.

The legend said that this ought to have been a place of great happiness, built to sanctify the marriage between two great kingdoms but instead, it had become the bride's tomb, tainted by her spilled blood at the hands of an angry father. He thought of the young couple possessed by the spirits of two long lost souls who had, finally, been reunited here after so many centuries apart.

Perhaps it was fitting that the altar should should remain in this place undisturbed, as a monument to the power of love.

As he walked briskly from the temple, Judson did not look back. Yesterday's dream had died with Stefan but the seed of a new one had been planted and perhaps, in a thousand years time, he would return to this place and find Stefan waiting for him.

THE END


End file.
